Biomechanics of the Head for Olympic Boxer Punches to the Face T J Walilko, D C Viano, C a Bir
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710 Br J Sports Med: first published as 10.1136/bjsm.2004.014126 on 23 September 2005. Downloaded from ORIGINAL ARTICLE Biomechanics of the head for Olympic boxer punches to the face T J Walilko, D C Viano, C A Bir ............................................................................................................................... Br J Sports Med 2005;39:710–719. doi: 10.1136/bjsm.2004.014126 Objective: The biomechanics of the head for punches to the jaw and the risk of head injury from translational and rotational acceleration were studied. Methods: Seven Olympic boxers from five weight classes delivered 18 straight punches to the frangible See end of article for face of the Hybrid III dummy. Translational and rotational head acceleration, neck responses, and jaw authors’ affiliations ....................... pressure distribution were measured. High speed video recorded each blow and was used to determine punch velocity. Equilibrium was used to determine punch force, energy transfer, and power. Correspondence to: Results: Punch force averaged 3427 (standard deviation (SD) 811) N, hand velocity 9.14 (SD 2.06) m/s, David C Viano, ProBiomechanics LLC, 265 and effective punch mass 2.9 (SD 2.0) kg. Punch force was higher for the heavier weight classes, due Warrington Rd, Bloomfield primarily to a higher effective mass of the punch. Jaw load was 876 (SD 288) N. The peak translational Hills, MI 48304-2952, acceleration was 58 (SD 13) g, rotational acceleration was 6343 (SD 1789) rad/s2, and neck shear was USA; [email protected] 994 (SD 318) N. Accepted 31 January 2005 Conclusions: Olympic boxers deliver straight punches with high impact velocity and energy transfer. The ....................... severity of the punch increases with weight class. he sports of boxing and karate expose athletes to severe increase in bag momentum was due to the skilled boxer’s head impacts and the risk of brain injury.1 In many cases, ability to generate a greater effective mass during the impact Tthe athlete is exposed to repeated impacts and injuries. In than the lower skilled boxers. With a fist velocity at 11.5 m/s a 16 year study of injuries to professional boxers in Australia, immediately before impact and the resultant bag momentum 107 injuries were reported in 427 fight participations from of 47.4 Ns, the effective mass of the striking fist was August 1986 through to August 2001.2 The most commonly estimated to be approximately 4.1 kg. This is greater than injured body region was the head and neck (89.9%). In this the mass of the hand and reflects the ability to link more of body region, injuries to the eye were the most frequent the arm mass into the punch. (45.8%) followed by concussions (15.9%). There was no Atha et al6 collected punch force data on a world ranked information on the mechanism or forces that caused the heavyweight boxer using an instrumented target suspended injuries. as a ballistic pendulum. The target was a cylindrical metal The principles of momentum and energy conservation have mass of 7 kg, estimated to be the mass of the head and neck http://bjsm.bmj.com/ been used to estimate the force of various punches and to of a heavyweight boxer. During the punch, the boxer’s fist understand what causes head injuries in karate and boxing. reached an 8.9 m/s impact velocity with a resulting peak Peak punch forces are reported to range from 1666 to impact force of 4096 N. The peak acceleration of the 6860 N.3 Walker4 estimated that a force of 3200 N is required pendulum was 53 g. Only one boxer participated in the study to break a brick, which is common practice in karate so extrapolations to the general boxing population are not demonstrations. However, in many studies the momentum possible. However, the results reflect the force of a heavy- of the punch was not transferred to an object comparable in weight boxer’s punch. The model’s biofidelity is unknown, so mass and biofidelity to the human head and neck, and thus the risk of injury can not be determined. Other studies on on September 28, 2021 by guest. Protected copyright. the risk of injury cannot be estimated from these punches. punch force have reported peak loads of 4800 (SD 601) N for In a study of karate, Smith and Hamill5 measured the fist elite, 3722 (SD 375) N for intermediate, and 2381 (SD 328) N velocities from punchers of different skill levels and the for novice English boxers7 and 3453 N for 24 elite, 3023 N for relative momentum of a 33 kg punching bag. Punches to the 23 national, and 2932 N for 23 intermediate boxers.8 bag with bare fists (BF), karate gloves (KG), and boxing Smith et al9 evaluated the punch of three amateur boxers to gloves (BG) were recorded with high speed film. The mean assess head impact responses and the risk of injury. Each bag momentum for all tests was 47.37 Ns. The results boxer was instructed to strike a headform with a left hook or showed no significant differences in fist velocities between left jab. The headform was instrumented with a 3-2-2-2 skill levels or glove type (BF: 11.03 (standard deviation (SD) configuration of accelerometers10 to determine the transla- 1.96) m/s, KG: 11.89 (SD 2.10) m/s, BG: 11.57 (SD 3.43) m/ tional and rotational acceleration. The translational accelera- s). The average fist velocity was 11.5 m/s. Differences in bag tion averaged 21.5 (SD 4.6) g for the left jab and 43.6 (SD momentum were found with changes in skill level and glove. 15.6) g for the left hook. The rotational acceleration varied Greater bag momentum was generated with boxing gloves from 292.7 (SD 72.2) rad/s2 for the left jab to 675.9 (SD (53.73 (SD 15.35) Ns) than with either bare fists (46.4 (SD 230.6) rad/s2 for the left hook. Based on the tolerance limit of 17.40) Ns) or karate gloves (42.0 (SD 18.7) Ns), which had 200 g for translational acceleration and 4500 rad/s2 for approximately the same momentum. The bag momentum was also greatest for the highest skilled subjects (60.8 (SD Abbreviations: BG, boxing gloves; BF, bare fists; DAI, diffuse axonal 17.3) Ns) compared to the lower skilled punchers (42.3 (SD injuries; cg, centre of gravity; HIC, head injury criterion; KG, karate 11.6) Ns) even though their respective fist velocities were gloves; MTBI, mild traumatic brain injury; NFL, National Football approximately the same. The authors hypothesised that the League; SD, standard deviation www.bjsportmed.com Biomechanics of the head for Olympic boxer punches to the face 711 Br J Sports Med: first published as 10.1136/bjsm.2004.014126 on 23 September 2005. Downloaded from rotational acceleration, the researchers concluded that Ommaya and Hirsch24 scaled primate head injury data to neither the translational nor the rotational acceleration humans and predicted that a level of head rotational reached a level that was injurious to the boxer. They acceleration in excess of 1800 rad/s2 would have a 50% suggested that repeated sub-concussive blows were the probability of resulting in cerebral concussion in man. injury mechanism for mild traumatic brain injury (MTBI). Analysis of injuries produced in rhesus monkey experiments In contrast, Johnson et al11 reported that head injuries are resulted in Gennarelli et al25 estimating a 16 000 rad/s2 likely in boxing. Low velocity volunteer data were extra- rotational acceleration tolerance threshold in man. polated to predict higher impact velocities that were more In a survey of their research on rotation head injury, representative of those seen in boxing. The report determined Ommaya et al17 stated that for the adult brain the rotational that the extrapolated data fell in the region of ‘‘certain acceleration required to produce concussion is 4500 rad/s2 injury’’ calculated by Unterharnscheidt and Sellier.12 Their and severe diffuse axonal injuries (DAI) occur at rotational study assumed that the maximum punch strength was accelerations of 18 000 rad/s2. This response range is delivered to the head with only minimal deflection. While the obtained from scaling animal impact data and indicates the results of this study raise concerns about the risk of injury in difficulty in developing a precise injury prediction criterion boxing, the use of extrapolated low speed data to predict for rotational motion. One problem is that the shape and injury at higher speeds needs additional validation. mass of the animal and human brains are different and Techniques have been developed to determine the risk of scaling laws assume geometric similarity. The low mass of head injury for an impact.13 Based on biomechanical the animal brain requires very high rotational accelerations to 24 principles, these techniques involve the simulation of real- produce closed head injuries. These factors complicate world impacts on human surrogates with biofidelity built predictions of human injury from animal responses to into their impact responses.14 Biofidelity reflects the ability of rotational head acceleration. the surrogate to simulate the essential biomechanical In an effort to understand the relationship between forces characteristics of the human impact response. The Hybrid delivered to the jaw region and the risk of head injury from III crash dummy used in this project is currently the most translational and rotational acceleration, the biomechanics of advanced, validated biomechanical surrogate for frontal boxer’s punches were studied. Olympic class boxers threw impacts. The validation of the surrogate includes the head straight punches at an instrumented Hybrid III headform and neck, which are of particular interest in this study.